8:54am Friday 10th August 2007
By Lauren Murray
THE Swan Theatre Amateur Company has a good record when it comes to performing the works of Willy Russell.
Three years ago, when Michelle Whitfield gave a memorable performance as Shirley Valentine, the audience packed into the Swan Theatre studio space, howled with laugher, wiped away tears and left emotionally fulfilled.
Now, STAC is performing Russell's 1979 comedy One For The Road. If the company is hoping for similar success, they are getting off to a good start by again casting Whitfield.
She said: "Willy Russell is an absolutely marvellous playwright for actors to work with.
"He is very good at observing people. The people he writes about are so real, the kind of characters everyone can relate to."
One For The Road is about Dennis, who is fast-approaching his 35th birthday and having what Whitfield describes as, "a big male mid-life crisis".
He feels trapped by domestic life and yearns for freedom and the open road. His friends, however, have a different idea.
Whitfield plays Jane Fuller and she said of her: "She's a cross between Penelope Keith's character in The Good Life, Doctor Ruth and Bruce Lee.
"She's very much top dog on the estate who casts her critical eye over other people's table arrangments.
"But, during the play we find she's not quite as perfect as people think."
Russell, who also wrote Educating Rita, Blood Brothers, and Shirley Valentine, has picked up countless accolade for his work. In 2000, he released his first novel, The Wrong Boy, which is now being adapted into a television series.
STAC's production of One for the Road contains strong language and sexual references. It stars Math Jones, Amber Bluck and Alan Humphries and runs in the Swan Theatre Sara Knight Studio from Tuesday, August 14, to Saturday, August 18. For tickets, £7.50, call the Worcester Live box office on 01905 611427.
Lauren Murray
© Copyright 2001-2010 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.worcesternews.co.uk